Save Me
by Viking Princess
Summary: Life or death, anything is better than the present moment. The thoughts of Robin in 'Sympathy for the Devil' as she waits to see what Amon will do.


Disclaimer: Nope, sure don't own Witch Hunter Robin. I can't afford the expresso machine required to keep her going. Oh well. More instant coffee? No? Okay, well then, hope you like the story!

_Wisdom is Solomon's Seal: the whole world, a form_

_wisdom animates. Or call it_

_the soul that collects in human beings and lets them reign_

_over the leopard, the lion,_

_and the crocodile in the river. What threatens a person_

_more than those, though,_

_are the invisible forces that fight in his or her heart._

_-'Solomon's Sight,' Rumi_

Death raised his hand and she closed her eyes. Even shut she could see the barrel of the gun, the arm that wielded it. Judgement had arrived, one-third the presence of the Trinity she lived for.

Her God, present in His power since her first breath had withdrawn His grace. So said her guardian, Juliano, whose words she now held pressed to her chest. "To live outside the Lord's love is unimaginable," his deep voice whispered in her ear. "You must kill, without regret, all those who are outside our Lord's love, for surely to live beyond the touch of God's guiding hand is an abomination, cold and empty; and in the teeming void Satan will find his opportunity."

Following obediently the path her guardian had set for her, she had unknowingly tread upon knowledge that clung to her as scent to skin, invisible, permeating. Knowledge deemed heretical, powerful enough to kill for, forbidden enough to warrant her death. This 'fragment of wisdom' had severed her from her God, guardian, partner, and now her life.

"This is your purpose," echoed the memory of his resonant voice, his stern face playing on the field of her closed lids, "to know the darkness that spawns temptation, to touch the power that breeds corruption, and eliminate such threats with the Lord's fire."

God's fire, never her own. To use it without His blessing or against His will was arrogance such as Lucifer had shown. To say 'this power is mine to use or abstain from as I will' was to mimic the Devil. In doing so one denied God and forfeited the right to enjoy the gift of life He graciously bestows on His children. To claim ownership of such power was to be a fallen angel.

These lessons were inscribed with searing discipline on her psyche, taught to her in the ruse that some would call childhood. She had never been a child. There were no stuffed animals in her bed, no frilly pink dresses or girlish bows. No toys. The only ornament was the bleeding, suffering Christ hanging from his miniature cross on the wall in her cell. Black was the only color outside the sacristy. A whisper was the only acceptable volume. From her first Sunday onward she was educated in the Holy Church and the role God had prescribed for her. The Lord was all-powerful, and Robin was his instrument of justice, a consecrated assassin, the eliminator of her Savior's enemies.

Scarcely could she draw breath, so weighty was the fatigue of killing. Her short life was marked by and punctuated with death. Since her first conscious moment she had been honed to be the killing blade, yet now her awareness and forbidden knowledge blunted the edge Solomon had put on her obedience. The idiosyncrasies of her religion and meaning in life were casting a darker shadow now, questions that Solomon had trained her to overlook. Never had she puzzled out how God could be both merciful and vengeful, forgiving and punishing, ever changeable by circumstances no mere mortal could feign to understand. More pressing a concern, however, was how her God could set a child the task of being a killer while commanding all others to abstain upon risk of hellfire.

To be emotionless was the refuge, the cornerstone of her sanity, cold and calculated in every thought and action. Yet her overwhelming weariness extended to her façade of self-possession. To be moved in any way was to be weak. But she knew she was weak, she had always known it. Never had Solomon allowed such trivialities as warmth, touch, friendship, acceptance or love to taint the sanctified executioner that was Robin. But she longed mutinously for those things. She yearned, beyond hope, for happiness, belonging, and peace. More than that she longed for any strong emotion that she would be permitted or able to express. Paralyzing fear, electric exhilaration, a howling hurt.

Yet her training became the wall she broke herself upon. These traitorous emotions, labeled as the symptoms of an unruly mind, swelled against and were tossed back by that barrier of cruel education. With no acceptable outlet they churned within her, water that vaporized to steam and increased the pressure to such heights that she found herself recklessly yearning for the swift bullet that would put an end to the anguish.

She knew, yes she knew Solomon's judgment. All the words now echoing in her head confirmed the necessity of the black clad man standing before her with death in his hand. If she used her power for herself, as she had done; if she denied God's right to her Craft and His will to use such power against those forsaken by God, called witches, then she was a witch herself and thoroughly damned.

Her trinity –God, Juliano, and Amon – had declared her a witch. She stood outside the sanctity of her deity, the guidance of her teacher, the protection of her partner. She was bereft of the love of all three, and this thought above all others drove her to close her eyes, to will his finger to tighten on the trigger. She had betrayed every ideal she was raised to believe, but to obey was to betray the persecuted masses in need of her guardianship. She had no purchase, nothing to cling to, every thought or action was the wrong one.

All but one. Even in the murky darkness she now found herself, a pure, undiluted desire shown as a hot pinprick of light. Amon – her former partner, protector, and now executioner could save her from her unchecked fall. Self discipline had so choked her she could not draw the breath required, but if she could, she would ask only for the friendship and acceptance she had felt once with him while standing on the brink of capture and possible death. He had told her then that he did not think of her as a witch, and that lone memory had stood as her only comfort in the agonizingly long blur of days and death since she had last seen his face. If only she could form the words that said 'think of me as you once did. I do not feel changed, and you have not changed in my heart. Can't you see me with the eyes that looked upon me then?'

Those words would not form on her tongue, nor could she keep the yearning from her eyes, and so she had closed them and stood motionless, calling silently to the man who had once, despite his orders, despite his training, found something in her worth saving.

_Save me now,_ her mind cried out, _save me from Solomon's judgment with your hand in mine, or save me from myself and what I may become if they are right and save me from those who mean to use me and save me from doing nothing which is damnable. Just save me, with death or life. Either is preferable to this impossible dance of uncertainty. Kill me or love me._

_Amon. Save me._


End file.
